Darcy took a long deep breath as she took out her notebook and pen. Act normal, she told herself. If Quinn noticed how flustered she got by the simplest compliments, he’d surely make fun of her, and she did not want that. She walked mechanically back and sat stiffly next to him. She avoided eye contact as she opened the notebook.

“Oh, is that your book’s manuscript?” Quinn’s voice sounded a little too close, and it only made her even more nervous.

“Yeah, though that’s not important right now. I just brought this to take notes while you read.” Remembering something she had wanted to say, Darcy finally looked up from the blank pages and was met with almond-shaped blue eyes. Again, Quinn and his zero sense of personal distance.

“Are you short-sighted or something? Geez, you don’t have to get this close to look at me.” She finally voiced out the remark she had harbored from the very first time he approached her. Quinn grinned somewhat mischievously and replied: “Does it bother you?”

“Yes. Personal distance. Look it up.”  She huffed out an exasperated breath, (extroverts exhausted her, you see,) then added: “a-n-y-w-a-y, what I was going to say before I found your face literally right in front of mine was that you didn’t need to read out loud any detail that feels personal.”

Quinn smiled, both at her remark about personal distance and her consideration regarding Karl’s journal. “Sure. Then, I’ll begin.”

Darcy looked ahead while Quinn began reading the words inscribed on the pages. They began with Karl’s account of his first day in college. Quinn seemed to be having fun reading this section, as it involved several moments the two shared. He would laugh at a certain paragraph, and make a comment about another, then nod to this phrase, and protest to another. Hearing how enjoyably he was reading, Darcy could not help but feel how close the two are. She hoped that Karl was alright, wherever he was, that this was just a misunderstanding, that he was alive. She hoped even more that Quinn would not have to experience the loss of someone this important to him. This idea led her to think that she had gotten familiar with him a little bit too quickly. She barely knew anything about him; she probably knew much more about Karl whom she had never even met. Nevertheless, Darcy felt like they could be good friends if possible. Quinn’s sudden silence interrupted her wishful thinking. She turned to face him.

“What is it? Is it an embarrassing part?”

“Ah... No. It’s where he first sees you.” He was still looking at the page in question as he spoke. Darcy instantly blushed. “C-can you read it, or is it uhm too personal?” Quinn glanced at her, a somewhat sad smile on his fair face. “Do you want to know that badly?” Darcy felt a little cornered.

“I just... could use a different perception, you know? It’s interesting to know how others see you.”

“Really?”

“Yes! Don’t you want to know sometimes if your image of yourself coincides with the others’ image of you?”

With that same smile, Quinn slowly shut the journal, placing his finger between the pages.

“Would you like to know my image of you?” He asked, looking directly into her eyes. His question seemed to have startled her for she blushed and turned away.

“If it’s negative, which it probably is, euphemize it for me, will you?”

“You say it like you’re absolutely sure that I see you in a bad way.” Even though she was not looking at him, she could feel his ocean-deep blue eyes peer into her profile.

“I mean, how else could you see me? There is nothing good about me, anyway.” Darcy muttered, then, realizing how tense the atmosphere had become, added in an artificially composed voice: “Anyway, let’s just move on. Skip to the next part.” 

Quinn stared at her silently for a moment. He re-opened the journal and continued in a clear yet monotonous voice:

“Today was a very strange day. I met a very strange girl, well not met, more like saw. I didn’t actually talk to her, although I wanted to. I found out from my friends that her name is Darcy. Kind of a weird name, too, reminds me of that chick-flick. I forgot what the movie is called, but there’s this guy in it who girls love, kind of like Twilight’s Edward but for nerds. He’s called Darcy, too. Yeah, Mr. Darcy: black hair, pretty face, veiny-hands, the shit chicks dig. This Darcy, though, seemed like the opposite of that Darcy. Not only was she anything but charming, she was also the type to stay away in corners and write obsessively.

But... I think that’s amazing. I don’t have anything I am passionate about in my life, unlike her. I saw her today when I was on my way to pick up Charlie from her lecture. She’s her classmate, I found out later. Anyway, she was sitting by this tree and mumbling to herself, she didn’t even notice me walking right in front of her. Out of nowhere, she exclaimed: “Hard-Boiled!” like really fucking loud, it scared me shitless. I asked her if she was okay but she didn’t even hear me. So I snuck a peak at her journal, and saw that she was writing some kind of novel or something (it was bulky as fuck.) and the name on top was this “hard-boiled.” Really weird girl. Would love to talk to her sometime.”

Quinn stopped to take a breath. His throat was dry by now, too. He glanced at Darcy, who was beat-red.

“I told you to skip it...” she mumbled, covering her eyes with her hand. Quinn was extremely tempted to move her hand away, but he thought better of it.

“I thought it maybe had some hint in it.”

“Yeah, right. You just did it to tease me.”

He noticed how her lower lip trembled as she spoke. Her lips were such a pretty natural color, he thought.

“Yeah,” he chuckled, “maybe a little bit.”

“Fuck off...” Darcy was embarrassed beyond words, so embarrassed that she even hid her face from Quinn. How could he read that so seriously? So embarrassing... It was back when she was working on her first ever detective novel, which she obviously had called Hard-Boiled. She had been so proud of the title because it was a pun: the victims of the novel all had their heads hard boiled. Darcy sighed at the sheer ridiculousness of her past self. Someone actually saw her in that state and wrote about it. And now Quinn knows about it too. A lonely hazel eye peeked at him from between her fingers. He was looking ahead and seemed a little sad. His expression instantly pulled her back into reality.

“Sorry you had to see that... Let’s please move to other entries; Karl might be in danger as we speak.”

The man seemed surprised with this statement, as though he wasn’t even thinking about Karl. He nodded then averted his eyes back to the journal. Darcy noticed how he seemed to be struggling to focus. She placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“He’ll be fine, don’t worry. Let’s hope he just went on a secret vacation, somewhere. Once he gets back, you can kick his ass to your heart’s content.”

Quinn kept his eyes on the journal laid upon his palms. He had a deep frown on his face, which gave off a somewhat masculine aura; and his lips were pressed quite tightly against one another.

“Are you okay? We can stop here, if you like.” Her suggestion was apparently what he needed the most, since he stood up suddenly.

“Yes! I’ll call you tomorrow or something! Night!” With that, Quinn slammed the door behind him. She heard his footsteps hurriedly getting further and further away. It was only late at night when she decided to continue reading the materials that she realized that he had taken the journal with him.